


Shooting Stars (Make a Wish)

by Kyele



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Make-A-Wish Foundation, No Death (promise), Reader's Choice - Freeform, fuck cancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 07:40:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7258525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyele/pseuds/Kyele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Her phone finally buzzed on Wednesday, nearly a full week after Amelia’s Wish. She swiped at the message from the Reverse Flash, hardly daring to breathe, then broke into a grin when she’d read it. It was typically terse, and said: </i>What do good guys use to test medical advancements on instead of kidnapped-human trials? Asking for a friend.</p><p><i>She texted back: </i>I think I can find you some volunteers.</p><p>(Based on <a href="http://theregoesallthecottoncandy.tumblr.com/post/146123259945/beka-tiddalik-katyakora">this tumblr post</a> about a Villain Wrangler for the Make-a-Wish Foundation, who specializes in fulfilling Wishes that require, well, villains!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shooting Stars (Make a Wish)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Themadwomanwhoisunfortunatelylackingabox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themadwomanwhoisunfortunatelylackingabox/gifts).



> In addition to the tumblr post, this fic was inspired by Coco, who specifically asked for someone's Wish to involve both the Flash and the Reverse Flash needing to make peace for a day. Happy birthday, Coco!
> 
> None of the fiction in the linked tumblr post is mine - they are the work of other authors, who hopefully don't mind me throwing my hat in the ring, too.
> 
> Can be read as pre-slash, but you have to be squinting pretty hard, to be honest.
> 
> ...it's probably best if no one thinks too hard about any of this.

Surprisingly, the Reverse Flash was the easy part.

Nicole was used to dealing with villains; it was in the job description, after all. “Make-a-Wish Foundation seeks Wish Fulfillers: must be good with villains.” True, it hadn’t been in the job description until she’d put it there, but the job market was tough for new grads these days and she’d really taken her mom’s advice about ‘finding a niche and filling it’ to heart. These days Nicole could drop by a villain’s lair and have a quick chat with them about fulfilling someone’s Wish next Thursday without batting an eye at the hero tied up in an inventive BDSM pose in the middle of the floor. The first few times, sure. But honestly, these days, it was just background noise.

And she _had_ , occasionally, taken advantage of the frequent proximity of villains and heroes to make multiple appointments at once. Just last week she’d swung by Rogue HQ to schedule a visit from Captain Cold to a little girl who’d recently lost a foot to frostbite, then run into the Flash (literally – apparently superspeed doesn’t equate to super navigation) and seized the opportunity to book him in at a hospital charity event being held for children suffering from multiple melanoma. That was the sort of efficiency that got her top ratings on her annual job reviews, after all.

And the top ratings were the reason she was working on her current assignment. Melanie had been the original case officer, but once she’d filed her initial report the whole mess had gotten squarely moved into Nicole’s lap. Anything involving Central City’s villains went to her first, these days. And certainly anything that involved Central City’s villains coexisting in spaces with Central City’s heroes _sans_ property damage.

This sweet little girl with the six weeks to live wanted to meet the Flash. And the Reverse Flash. And she wanted to meet them _at the same time._

Nicole figured she was so successful at her job because she’d taken the time to _understand_ villains. Villains weren’t a different species; they just had their own code. And rule number one in the code is: death to the heroes. Or at least eternal enmity to the heroes. Antagonism to the heroes? Snarky passive-aggressive comments and pointed glares to the heroes, at the very minimum.

So Nicole had gone to tackle the Revere Flash first, figuring that that would be the hard part, and then she could win the Flash over with some of the usual heroic stuff about duty and honor and the greater good. She’d followed the usual protocols to gain access to his hideaway, explained what Amelia Gardener’s Wish entailed, and waited for the explosion.

The Reverse Flash’s reaction was… unexpected.

“And the Flash will have to abide by the same rules?” he demanded, staring at Nicole intently – at least, Nicole assumed so; it was hard to tell through the glowing red eyes.

“No fighting of any kind, physical or verbal,” Nicole recited. “No physical contact not agreed to by both parties affirmatively or in advance. No reference to any point on which you might disagree. No reference to any future plans that might impact the other. Plus all the usual rules – no cops, no press, et cetera.”

The Reverse Flash grinned. Nicole braced herself, ready to argue. But he surprised her.

“Just tell me when and where,” the villain said eagerly.

* * *

Given how easy it had been to get the Reverse Flash to agree, Nicole thought she could perhaps have been forgiven for assuming that this assignment was going to be a breeze.

The Flash was one of the easier heroes to get a hold of. Usually just _finding_ heroes was a lot harder than finding villains. Villains had lairs. They had hideouts. They had headquarters. It was just a matter of knowing which alley to walk down, which spray-painted triple-barred door to give the special knock, or which seemingly-filthy beggar’s cup to drop the right coin into. Another reason Nicole got along with Central City’s villains so well. They shared an affinity for routine and order.

Thankfully, Central City’s heroes weren’t as chaotic as other cities’ protectors. Nicole didn’t envy her counterpart in, say, Opal City, for example. Though she’d heard interesting rumors about a ‘bat-signal’ in use in Gotham that she intended to check out on her next vacation. But the Flash differed from his heroic brethren in that he, too, had a central headquarters – one that was generally known. Nicole parked her motorcycle in a visitor spot at STAR Labs in blithe disregard of the giant “NO TRESPASSING” signs and shredded yellow tape that said “POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS”. She just made sure there wasn’t any glass under her bike’s tires and took her helmet off. (Toyman had been right – it really did help with getting around the city at the height of rush hour. And with the number of modifications that had been made to the bike, by the series of villains who had tinkered with it, Nicole didn’t doubt that she was safer on the bike than she’d ever been in her old beat-up Corolla.)

She pressed the buzzer at the visitor’s entrance and waited patiently, ignoring the fact that the lights were off and the visible section of the office on the other side of the door was in ruins.

“Name?” a pleasant voice inquired from the intercom grille.

“Nicole from Make-a-Wish,” she chirped.

The door opened without further ado. Some days, she loved her job.

* * *

“If you think there is  _any way_ I will promise not to attack him on sight – ”

Other days, she really hated it. Ugh. _Heroes._

“Mr. Flash,” Nicole said as firmly as possible. “I am not interested – ”

“If you knew what he’d _done!_ ”

Nicole rolled her eyes before she could stop herself. It didn’t defuse the situation, but it made her feel better.

The Flash was so agitated that sparks of lightning were flying off his hands as he waved them in the air. “He’s a villain! He’s _evil!_ ”

Oh, that was just _it._ Nicole hadn’t wanted to do this, but sometimes one simply had to pull out the big guns and beat the idiot with a clue-by-four.

(Excuse her mixed metaphors. It’s a villain thing.)

Nicole pulled out The Picture.

“This,” she sad, holding the picture up where the Flash could see it, “is Amelia Gardener. She is five years old. She has approximately six weeks to live.”

The Flash stopped dead.

_Gotcha._

“She gets a Wish, Mr. Flash. They all get a Wish. Her Wish is to see you – to see _both_ of you. You and the Reverse Flash.”

“Can’t she see us sequentially?” the Flash said weakly.

“Her request was specifically to see both of you _at the same time._ ” Nicole moved The Picture to the left, so it remained in the Flash’s field of vision. “She has stage four lung cancer. It started as a knee tumor, and she was scheduled to have that leg amputated, but three weeks ago they found it had already jumped to her lungs. She was told to enjoy the time she had left.” Nicole paused to make sure she had the Flash’s _full_ attention. “So tell me again how you can’t take an hour out of your busy life of enmity to stand in the same room as the Reverse Flash, paste on a smile, and tell Amelia that you’re glad to meet her.”

The Flash looked like he was about to cry. No, scratch that – the Flash _was_ crying. Nicole didn’t break his gaze. She’d seen a lot of heroic tears before.

“Will her mom be there?” the Flash asked after a moment.

Nicole raised her eyebrows. “I can arrange the time so that she is?”

“No,” the Flash said quickly. “No – don’t.” He scrubs his hands over his eyes. “I’ll do it, on one condition. No mothers.”

Nicole wasn’t going to ask. “Fine.” She pulled out her smartphone. “Thursday good for you?”

“After work hours.” The Flash smiled weakly. “I have a day job.”

Nicole made a notation. “Done.” She tucked her smartphone away. “I’d say it was a pleasure doing business with you, but I think we’d both know that’s a lie.”

She turned on her heel and headed for the elevator. Behind her, the Flash muttered, “You’ve been hanging out with villains too long.”

Nicole shrugged without turning back. Like she’d never heard _that_ before.

* * *

It had been late on Tuesday when Nicole had gotten the Flash’s buy-in. She’d texted the Reverse Flash immediately. The string of emoticons she’d gotten back had been a little hard to decode – the hockey emoji was particularly mystifying, given that the current Unicode standard didn’t  _have_ a hockey emoji – but there had been a thumbs-up in the mix, and that was good enough for Nicole. He’d be there.

Wednesday vanished in a blur of other assignments. She had the Mirror Master at Central City General in the morning and the Weather Wizard at a birthday party in the afternoon. In between she fielded half a dozen calls from Make-a-Wish HQ and made as many more, including one to her counterpart in Starling City, trying to coordinate a cross-city Wish. A little boy had just lost his father in a boating accident and was asking to meet Ra’s al Ghul. Specifically, to have Ra’s al Ghul come to the mortuary – and as soon as possible. Smart kid. Nicole’s counterpart had a call in to Nyssa al Ghul and was hopeful they could get Ra’s to Central before the body started to decay. Reanimation was always so awkward once rot set in.

Thursday was calmer, and Nicole was able to get to the hospital in plenty of time to run the usual prep. Central City General was used to the drill by now. The staff knew all of the local reporters on sight, including the freelancers who ran “villain spotting” blogs. There was extra security on each door, and the cancer wing was using its metal detectors today – ostensibly because there had been a bomb threat; in actuality because cameras – even smartphones – set the thing off. Thank you to the Pied Piper for _that_ bit of technology.

She even had time to drop by the CCPD’s local precinct with coffee and donuts. Stereotypical, but, as she kept telling her villains, cops were people too. None of them wanted to make a little kid cry. Any other day they’d happily bust villainous ass. But Nicole had made a habit of coming by with Dunkin Donuts on Wish fulfillment days, just as a kind of heads-up, you know. And if the cops happened not to notice that someone in a flashy costume was sneaking into the hospital on those days – well. Honest mistake. Could happen to anyone. And my union will back me on that, _sir._

Amelia was practically bouncing with excitement as six o’clock drew near. The bouncing was more spiritual than physical, given the web of machinery she was enmeshed in, but her enthusiasm was boundless. Nicole had to smile, even against the knowledge that Amelia and all her energy were going to be gone before too much longer. No amount of time doing this job made that any easier. But she was going to damn well make sure Amelia got her Wish.

The Reverse Flash arrived first. That didn’t surprise Nicole a bit; the Flash was notoriously late. Rude, really. And he’d probably blow in like a tornado. Contrast that with the Reverse Flash, who knocked politely on the door like a normal human being and entered at a normal human speed.

He’d even left off the red-glowey-eyes for the occasion. Nicole gave him a smile and a nod to show how pleased she was.

“Amelia,” she started, “this is – ”

“The Reverse Flash!” Amelia squealed.

Amelia’s dad – _no moms,_ the Flash had stipulated – was clearly more nervous about this. He hadn’t been thrilled with his daughter’s wish. Of course, Nicole thought charitably, there was little to be pleased _about_ with his daughter’s situation. The dad was keeping it under control, at least – not interfering with Amelia, who waved the Reverse Flash over and was holding onto both his hands as she babbled up at him, though the dad _had_ snuck his chair a protective inch or two closer.

Nicole stationed herself at the door. She knew what was about to happen, and she wanted to be prepared when it did.

The crackle of lightning reached her ears moments before a heavy weight _thumped_ into her back. She’d taken the precaution of bracing herself against the doorframe, like riding out an earthquake, and managed to keep her feet. The person who’d just slammed into her wasn’t so lucky. Nicole turned in time to see the Flash sprawled on his ass in the middle of the hospital corridor.

“Is that him?” Amelia shrieked from within the room.

“Glad you could make it,” Nicole told the scarlet speedster, smiling her politest and least sincere smile as the Flash levered himself to his feet. “Remember this is a hospital. Lots of machinery. Lots of things to run into or trip over.”

“I wasn’t expecting something _in the door,_ ” the Flash grumbled at her.

“No one ever _expects_ to fuck up,” Nicole shot back. “Keep it to human speed for the rest of the hour, is that clear?”

“Yes _ma’am_.”

It was on the tip of Nicole’s tongue to call him out on this rudeness, but Amelia called out again, and she reluctantly stepped aside.

“Hello, Amelia,” the Flash said as he entered the room. He had a smile on his face, though it was somewhat strained, and he kept darting glances at his villainous counterpart. “I’m glad to meet you.”

The Reverse Flash’s grin only grew wider. “We’re glad you could make it. Aren’t we, Amelia?”

The Flash scowled. Amelia didn’t notice. Nicole did. She cleared her throat, and made the _I’m watching you_ gesture at the Flash.

The Flash went around to stand by Amelia’s hospital bed – the opposite side of the Reverse Flash, Nicole couldn’t help but notice, but let it go. A Wish could only accomplish so much. _Stand in a room together for an hour and don’t fight_ had been the request. There had been no stipulation that they hug or sing kumbaya.

Nicole crossed her arms over her chest, leaned against the wall, and waited.

* * *

The hour went by too soon. They always did. But Amelia was visibly drooping by the end of it, no matter how much she insisted that she was fine.

Cancer took it out of everyone. Kids twice as bad. Nicole should know.

“I’ll look into that lung cloning technique,” the Reverse Flash was promising as Nicole held up five fingers, a reference to how many minutes they had left. “I think I may have a few new ideas about how to work it out. So don’t give up, okay? There’s still hope.”

“You’ll work super fast to get it done, right?” Amelia asked.

“Super fast,” the Reverse Flash swore.

Amelia nodded. Then her serious, too-bright gaze switched to the Flash. “And you’ll help?”

The Flash looked like he’d been caught in a trap – and Nicole should know; she’d seen him in quite a few traps over the three or so years she’d been wrangling the Central City Rogues. “Uh.”

The Reverse Flash looked similarly caught. “Well.”

“I read that you’re a scientist!” Amelia said. “So you could help.”

“I’m a different kind of scientist,” the Flash tried.

“But you’re fast. You could learn! I read in the newspaper that you learned how to build buildings after that fire downtown left people without their homes. You built them a whole new building! How long did that take you?”

The Flash’s mouth opened and closed again.

“A few days,” the Reverse Flash said. “Right?”

“Right,” the Flash said weakly.

“The doctors say I have six weeks,” Amelia said seriously. Her father, still in the chair next to her, made a choked-off sound that went right to Nicole’s guts. Amelia either didn’t hear him or, worse, was so used to hearing her parents make sounds like that that she didn’t take any notice. She said, “You can learn to be the right kind of scientist in less than six weeks, can’t you, Mr. Flash?”

The Flash made a choking sound of his own. Then, with a glare at both the Reverse Flash and Nicole that dared them to speak, said, “You bet I can.”

“So you’ll help.” Amelia smiled, pleased. “I bet if you work together you can figure it out so I don’t have to die. That’s why I wanted you both.”

 _Amelia, you clever girl,_ Nicole thought admiringly. She’d thought the little boy asking for Ra’s al Ghul had been smart, but this might just take the prize.

“We will do our best,” the Reverse Flash promised.

“Yes we will,” the Flash agreed.

It was the nicest they’d been to each other all hour. Nicole hated to break the mood, but –

“Time’s up,” she said gently, stepping forward. “The doctors say Amelia needs to take her medicine and sleep.” And to Amelia: “Besides, the Reverse Flash and the Flash have work to do.”

“Yes we do,” the Flash said, sounding determined. “We’ll see you again, Amelia.”

“Bye-bye,” Amelia said, trying and failing to hide a yawn.

Nicole stepped clear of the door. As soon as she did, two blurs of lightning ran by her.

Amelia’s father followed her out into the hallway. “You do this kind of thing a lot,” he said without preamble. “Do you – do you think – could they really – ”

“I wouldn’t bet against it,” Nicole said. She patted him on the shoulder and sent him back into Amelia’s room, then headed down the hall, pulling out her smartphone. She had to make HQ aware of this. _Pronto_.

* * *

For five days, there was complete radio silence from both speedsters. A building burned down on the second day, but Kid Flash handled the evacuation. The Weather Wizard had a plot foiled later in the week by Jesse Quick. Even a sighting first thought to be of the Flash preventing a bank robbery turned out to be old Jay Garrick taking out the helmet for one more spin.

The Reverse Flash didn’t answer his cell phone when Nicole texted. None of the other Rogues had any idea what was going on either. Nicole thought she’d caught a break when a shipment of chemicals bound for Mercury Labs went missing, but they turned up almost immediately at Palmer Tech, the victim of a simple shipping error.

Her phone finally buzzed on Wednesday, nearly a full week after Amelia’s Wish. She swiped at the message from the Reverse Flash, hardly daring to breathe, then broke into a grin when she’d read it. It was typically terse, and said: _What do good guys use to test medical advancements on instead of kidnapped-human trials? Asking for a friend._

She texted back: _I think I can find you some volunteers._

* * *

“They know this procedure is _experimental_ , right?” the Flash asked, appalled. “They know they could _die?_ ”

Nicole gave him a pitying look. “You’re clearly not a parent.”

Finding volunteers hadn’t been hard. All it had taken was an announcement that a late-stage organ cloning and transplant trial was seeking clinical subjects. That, and a promise that any volunteer could place any name they pleased on the list of the first patients to receive the new treatment, should it prove successful.

Five hundred-plus parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, godmothers, godfathers, spouses, best friends, and bereaved survivors had signed up in the first forty-eight hours. Then the news had spread _out_ of Central City. Nicole had called up the Pied Piper and offered him half her annual discretionary budget in exchange for a robust online sign-up, information gathering, and winnowing system for volunteers. He’d told her to keep her money and just have the Starbucks nearest him deliver every hour on the hour. A day later she’d had the system. A week later, the first wave of accepted volunteers were lining up now to have their DNA typed and the test replacement organs started growing.

“We are literally going to take a perfectly healthy organ _out_ of these perfectly healthy people and try to replace it with an organ grown in a vat,” the Flash said in agitation.

“Yeah, but we’re using kidneys for the trial,” Nicole pointed out. “Worst-case scenario, they’ve still got a spare.”

“We haven’t even tested this on _mice!_ ”

“The labs looked good,” Nicole said with a shrug.

“You’re not a scientist!”

“You are. And so are they.” Nicole smiled sweetly and gestured towards the center of the lab. The Reverse Flash was humming to himself as he keyed protein chains into the organ fabricating machine. Killer Frost was chatting with a middle-aged volunteer to distract him while she drew the blood sample. The Pied Piper was loading up the first batch of synthesizers.

“This isn’t FDA approved!” the Flash cried. “This whole thing is illegal! Technically this is an act of villainy! I’m – I’m being evil right now!”

“You’re saving lives,” Nicole said bluntly. “Stop getting so hung up on the details.”

“How are the cops not raiding us right now?”

Nicole studied her nails with great interest. “I think they’re all busy raiding the illegal red kryptonite farming operation down by the lakeside.”

The Flash’s jaw dropped. “Since when is there an illegal red kryptonite farming operation down by the lakeside?!”

“Since Iris West reported there was one.”

“Iris – she _knows_ there’s no such operation?”

“Does she?” Nicole smiled politely, then took herself off to see how the volunteer processing was doing. Time was a-wasting, after all.

* * *

“Will it hurt?” Amelia asked.

The Reverse Flash smoothed her hair back in a curiously paternal gesture. Amelia’s actual father was outside the room, watching through an observation glass with the rest of Amelia’s family. And Nicole. She had started this whole thing; she was going to see it through to the end.

“Not a bit,” the Reverse Flash promised.

Nicole believed him. So did Amelia, who lay back trustingly, teddy clutched to her chest.

“You’ll feel sleepy in just a moment,” Killer Frost said, lowering the anesthesia mask onto Amelia’s face. “Don’t fight it. Just go to sleep and dream about what you like best.”

“And when I wake up I’ll have new lungs,” Amelia said, voice muffled by the mask.

“When you wake up you’ll have a whole new life,” the Revere Flash promised.

The Flash, standing next to Nicole, made a sound that sounded awfully like a sob.

* * *

“Amelia!” her dad yelled, two months and a lifetime later. “Sit _down_!”

Amelia, giggling, finally obeyed her father and took a seat. She was panting and out of breath, but she was grinning from ear to ear. The other kids at Amelia’s sixth birthday party joined her, flopping down on the grass around her and keeping up a level of boisterous chatter that had the adults rolling their eyes in good-natured amusement.

Amelia’s new lungs weren’t up to full capacity, according to the Reverse Flash. The first batch of cloned organs had generally suffered from reduced functionality. That hadn’t stopped otherwise-terminal patients from lining up to get them. Reduced lung function was a hell of a lot better than no lung function at all. The mark two organs, Nicole had heard, had been considerably better on that score. Those who _had_ been able to wait for the process to be refined had done so.

Even as Nicole watched, Amelia’s mother pulled out a single-use sharp and gave Amelia her daily steroid shot. The steroids helped combat the reduced lung function. Last Nicole had heard, after finishing work on the mark two organs, Killer Frost had teamed up with Doctor Alchemy to work on a new serum that might, when perfected, stimulate organ growth and permanently boost function in mark one organ transplant recipients. From the look on Amelia’s mom’s face, though, she’d cheerfully give her daughter shots for the rest of her life.

There’d been an awkward speech earlier in which Amelia’s parents had thanked the Flash and the Reverse Flash – both present – as well as the other villains, not present, who’d helped save their daughter’s life. Nicole hadn’t escaped from their thanks, either, as much as she’d tried to say that she’d just been doing her job.

The sun was getting low, the cake had been cut, and Nicole had a Heatwave Wish that would be coming true early tomorrow morning. It was time for her to go. She gave Amelia one more hug, then headed for the door.

“Want a ride?” the Reverse Flash asked, appearing beside her in a burst of lightning. “You took the bus here, right?”

“I’m not going your way,” Nicole pointed out.

He laughed. “Like that matters to me.”

“I’ll drop her.” The Flash appeared on Nicole’s _other_ side.

“Drop her _off_ , I hope you mean.”

“Of course,” the Flash replied, curiously without heat. Actually, come to think of it, the Reverse Flash’s quip had been missing its usual edge, too.

Nicole narrowed her eyes and looked between them. They were _smiling_. At _each other._ She looked around quickly just in case. No, there was no mayhem that might explain the Reverse Flash’s pleased grin. Nor was there a certain spunky reporter anywhere in sight that might explain the Flash’s somewhat silly return smile. The only person for them to be smiling at – excluding Nicole herself, of course – was –

“Oh God,” Nicole said blankly. “What have I done?”

The two speedsters laughed. In unison. It was the most frightening thing Nicole had ever heard.

“I guess you made a couple different Wishes come true,” the Reverse Flash said.

Nicole opened her mouth to puncture the moment. Then she closed it again. Everyone knew a good story ended with the hero uttering a witty punch line. And she preferred to remain in the background of this _particular_ character arc.

She had a job to do, after all.


End file.
